German patent application documents nos. 199 42 524.8, 100 09 149.0, 100 04 966.4, 100 38 343.2, and 100 23 309 relate primarily to methods and/or systems that make it possible to insert location-related information not present in a digital map into the map. The location-related information may be linear or planiform objects. Examples include ends of traffic jams, parking garages, or side roads, which are not recorded in a digital map.
The focus of these applications is on the method for encoding and decoding objects. In this connection, the encoding of objects is understood to be:                surrounding the objects with location information and descriptive information,        marking of relevant objects,        creating assignment information for assigning the descriptive information to the location information,        transferring the objects into suitable coordinate chains, or, more generally, the location-related information into a data record,        displaying the location-related information in a suitable format, including information concerning structure and interpretation.        
Embodiments may also include only a portion of these steps.
In a standardized configuration, for example, information concerning structure and interpretation of the data may be unnecessary.
In this connection, the decoding of objects is understood to be:                comparing the geometric information of the supplementing data record and the data record to be supplemented, a suitable method being used,        inserting the supplementary objects into the data record to be supplemented.        